ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on Derrida to examine how encounters and engagements with ‘Otherness’ in the museum can promote affinity, feelings of being-at-home, optimistically pointing to the real democracy ‘yet-to-come.’ It explores the true and perfect friendship that illuminates, that gives visibility in museums and other social spaces. The chapter outlines of key ideas underpinning: of friendship and kinship, affect, and activist feminism. It provides to illuminate the notions with reference to three case studies in Kurdistan Northern Iraq: the Genocide Museum and Memorial Monument, Amna Sura Ka the Prison Museum and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The chapter examines more precisely what constitutes close feminist friendships and how actions connect to politics in the activist museum. Visitors enter the museum through armed security gates and see the museum buildings surrounded by gardens. The entrance corridor works powerfully with the museum media of light.
